The Eastern Conference Non-Achievement Awards...

“It’s been 14 years of silence.  It’s been 14 years of pain.  It’s been 14 years that are gone forever and I’ll never have again.”

                                                                        Guns ‘n Roses - Use Your Illusion II

This long-forgotten song just popped into my head this week, while looking at the Eastern Conference standings in the NBA, which is an absolutely unbelievable sight.  The Lakers, who are the thirteenth team in the West, would be a half-game back of Atlanta for the third spot in the East.  Now that is amazing!
Just look at this.  

I’ve been following this league for much longer than 14 years and even I’ve never seen it this historically bad in the East.  Sure it’s still pretty early in the season so a lot of this ineptitude will even out (because after all, someone has to win these games,) but it’s really just more of the same trend we’ve seen year after year in the Leastern Conference.  Well, for the last 14 that is.

I’ve written many times on this blog before about how incredible it has been that the Eastern Conference has consistently been about half as good as the Western Conference for all of recent memory.  The playoffs for all of the last decade were never really fair, because usually about eight of the best ten teams in the league were in the West.  Every year multiple winning-teams would be left out of the playoffs in the west, while many times, multiple teams with losing records would qualify in the East.  So far this year the West is dominating in inter-conference play with an aggregate record of 67-31, which is a winning percentage of about 67%.  But over the course of the last decade the split has been 59% to 41%. That’s crazy!  And really regardless of the numbers, the eye test has left absolutely no doubt.   So in a professional league of equal footing amongst teams, how is this possible?  When I think about it, it all traces back to one event, 14 seasons ago.    

The Guy who owns the Bobcats

Coming out of the lock-out of 1998-99, the NBA looked very different from what it had looked like previously.  Of course the accelerated 50 game season that followed was the most (or least) entertaining aspect of the situation, later inspiring Phil Jackson to say that the San Antonio Spurs 1999 championship should have an asterisk next to it.  And of course the marketing of the league had to shift dramatically with the second retirement of Michael Jordan, and the end of the Chicago Bulls dynasty, but the true lasting affect of that lockout settlement was the massive changes made to the Collective Bargaining Agreement between the players and owners. 

The Exception-al Larry Bird 

The NBA has had a salary cap since the 1983-84 season, but until ‘99 it was a soft cap that allowed teams to exceed the cap up to any amount they wanted when re-signing their own players (via the “Larry Bird exception,”) so in many situations there wasn’t really a cap at all.  But in ‘99 the league capped the amount that could be offered by percentages each year (including the Bird exception,) and for the first time in any American Sports league history, the NBA actually capped the amount an individual player could make, period (based on how long each player had been in the league.)  In addition, the rookie salary scale system was created which even further reduced player salaries, and truly was an ingenious coup for the owners.  It’s not like any current player was going to vote against it, and all of the players it would eventually affect weren’t even in the league yet! (If I recall correctly the only player who voted against it was Kobe.  I love that.)  But regardless, the agreement went through, and the new rules for building teams were extensive and suddenly quite a bit more complicated.      

So what does all this mean?  It means that teams needed to get smarter; they couldn’t rely just on basketball intuition anymore, they needed number crunchers, and salary-cap experts.  They needed to be responsible in their spending.  They had to make smart decisions.  But since that day in ’99 the East has time and time again been the vastly inferior conference.  So can it be that for 14 years, the Eastern Conference teams’ management has just been considerably dumber?  The answer is a resounding yes.   

When teams are bad consistently, it really just means that team management and coaching staffs have been bad consistently, so it’s time to celebrate the east; the NBA’s dumbest conference.  It’s time for the 14-year Eastern Conference Non-Achievement Awards.  Lets happily rank the ineptitude, shall we?

For the sake of these awards we are going to exempt the five Eastern conference teams that have been decent or better over the last 14 years, Miami, Indiana, Detroit, Boston, and Chicago.  And really even the later two teams on this list were both historically awful for the first seven seasons after the lockout.  But this is the deal.  Here are your top ten Eastern Conference Ineptness Champions, and their respective 14-year win-loss totals.

10. Orlando Magic – 622-582 - Even despite the Grant Hill/Tracy McGrady debacle and the Dwightmare (and of course Shaq skipping town in 1996) the Magic have kept their head above water by making decent personnel decisions.  Even though the ridiculous contracts they inexplicably gave out to Rashard Lewis and Hedo Turkoglu alone, should have gotten General Manager Otis Smith fired five years before he was finally shown the door, on the whole the team has been a decent Eastern team. 

9.  Atlanta Hawks – 525-679 - The ultimate .500 team for the second half of this 14-year span, the first seven years were so bad that their over-all record is abysmal.  After making multiple disastrous mistakes in the draft, they’ve constantly put themselves behind the 8-ball.  Marvin Williams over Chris Paul and Deron Williams, when they needed a point guard, was the most egregious.  Sheldon Williams over Brandon Roy, Rudy Gay, and Rajon Rondo was bad too.  And top picks DeMarr Johnson and Acie Law were both mega-busts.  They have done almost nothing in the playoffs in the past five years despite having somewhat decent regular season records, because they’ve just never seemed to have any kind of identity.  The Hawk’s future actually looks bright at the moment, but then again, we’ve said that before. 

8.  Cleveland Cavaliers – 551-652 - The only reason they are this high on the list is because of LeBron James, and because he willed them to far more victories than they deserved over a five-year span ending in 2010.  A perfect example of front-office ineptness, GM Danny Ferry never decided on a strategy to surround James with any complimenting talent, and ended up panicking himself into absurd Hail-Mary attempts to appease the King, bringing in over-priced former all-stars that didn’t fit at all.  But most shamefully, Ferry let defensive minded (and offensively-allergic) coach Mike Brown stay around five years too long, squandering any chance of success.  Brown was just as much of an adversary to LeBron’s game as the Celtics and Lakers were.  It's no wonder LBJ left town that fateful summer, to go to competent organization.          

7.  Brooklyn Nets – 550-668 - This seems too high for the former Jersey Boys, who have been synonymous with horrible basketball for most of their history, but a couple of Finals appearances in ‘02 and ’03 help their case.  On the flip side, they were blown out in both of those Finals matchups, by vastly superior Lakers and Spurs teams, and since then have been completely pathetic.  The fact that they are this high on the list, proves that the east is an absolute cluster.   

6.  Milwaukee Bucks – 559-645 - Another decent regular season team, often derailed by injuries, but consistently lose in the first round of the playoffs.  They have also made numerous questionable decisions when acquiring players.  In recent years they’ve traded or signed multiple score-first point guards or under-sized shooting guards who all need the ball in their hands to be effective, which is a very questionable strategy.  They are thus the current owners of the worst record in the league at 5-17.  Don't worry about "fearing the deer."    

5.  Philadelphia 76ers – 598-607 - They went to the Finals in 2001, and have done nothing in the playoffs since.  Like, really, pretty much nothing.  A great city like Philadelphia deserves better.  There’s been some bad luck; Elton Brand and Andrew Bynum both basically stole millions from the team, but mostly it’s just been the familiar Eastern conference story, horrible management.  And of course, no accountability.  It took Billy King five or six years to get fired when it seemed like he was actively trying to make it happen, with his horrible decisions.  (And of course now he runs the Nets.  Why?  I don't know.  My guess is that it's because some NBA owners are morons.)           

4.  Washington Wizards – 472-740 - Same thing here.  Horrible management.  GM Ernie Grunfeld has made every possible mistake possible during his run in the nation’s capital.  Mis-managing the cap, signing over-priced vets, trading “bad contract” for “worse-contract.”  And he’s kept his job for 10 years.  Unbelievable.  Only in the East, folks.   

3.  Toronto Raptors – 521-679 – Of course Canada’s only team has disadvantages in luring free-agents and keeping valuable assets, so a lot of this losing can be understood.  But the Raptors have just been pretty awful since they’ve come into the league.  Nothing has worked. 

2.  Charlotte Bobcats – 260-484 – The only team that hasn’t been around for all of the 14 years, only ten of them, but they’ve done enough losing for 20 years worth.  Many head-scratching trade decisions, and horrible draft selections have placed the Jordan-Errs consistently at the bottom.    

New York's Un-Big-Three

1.  New York Knicks – 539-661 – And here’s the ultimate poster-child for the ineptitude of the NBA’s Eastern conference.  The Coup de grace of a basketball soul-crusher.  What on earth is to be said about the New York Knicks?  They should be a juggernaut.  With all the advantages of the New York area, the supposed great basketball history in the city, and unlimited financial resources of their owner, they should be the smartest organization and the most talented team in the entire league.  They should constantly contend for championships.  But they never do.  Why?  Because for the past 14 years the franchise has been suffering under the delusion that they cannot “rebuild.”  “New York won’t stand for it,” we heard, but then that means contrarily, that New York will stand for their team being the biggest organizational laughing-stock in the NBA?  Don’t rebuild, just repeatedly put out a horrible team of mismatched veterans, with no discernable system or hope to win.  Over the last 14 years the Knicks have been managed by idiots, coached by idiots, owned by idiot, and watched by idiots, (I know because I was one of those idiots,) and there’s really no other way to put it.  We could go into all of the atrocious mistakes made by the infamous Isiah Thomas regime, and the ones made before and after, but it’s really not necessary.  No other team even comes close to the abomination that is the Knicks, they've just been consistently terrible at basketball.  They are the anti-Spurs; the precise paint-by-numbers example of what not to do.  And it’s shown on the court.

        

And there you have it.  The real reason why the East is bad, once again.  Just like it's been for the last 14 years, the teams in the West are just smarter.  Much smarter.

So hopefully teams in the East have been taking notes, because there’s never been an opportunity like this, to snatch the third seed behind Indiana and Miami.  Somebody has to win some games, so c'mon random Eastern Conference team x, that could be you!

And while the Pacers and Heat will rest their starters for the home stretch of the season and coast to easy victories in the playoffs, the teams out West will slug it out like they always do.  Imagine if the league abolished the conferences and just seeded the playoffs 1-16.  It would be a whole other ballgame right?  How many teams would get in from the East?  Three?  Four?    

Because that’s the way things are in the NBA, and have been for the last 14 years.  

The Western Conference and the Leastern.       

   
Thanks for reading,
Underdogs Out!

 

       

The World Cup Quandary...

It hurts me to write this.  It feels wrong.  I don’t consider myself to be that typical annoying American sports fan.  I do try to be as open as I can to watching the other popular sports around the world, but with international TV for the past nine months I’ve definitely had to adjust a little bit.  And by a little, I mean a lot!  Wow.  Cricket has to be the most boring game I’ve ever watched in my life, and I know that people say the same thing about baseball, but c’mon!  Even if I concede the point to some of my friends who claim that it is an amazing and interesting game, I find it to be one of the most unwatchable sports I’ve ever encountered.  Rugby seems like it would be incredibly fun to watch, and is, but it’s rarely broadcast even in international waters, and Curling and Netball are complete mysteries.  But of course dominating my European and Caribbean ESPN channels this year, has been the world’s most popular game, football. 

I’ve known this sport my entire life, as almost everyone on earth has.  Its rules are simple, pure, and maddeningly so at times because at the pro level, so often the score ends up to be much ado about nothing.  I can appreciate a good match, as I’ve written before, even in a nil-nil draw.  I can appreciate the incredible skill of these players, the offensive and defensive battle, and good spacing and great passing, but after nine months of having this stuff jammed down my throat, I have a few opinions. Believe me, I hate to write this, but there are a few fatal flaws here.  I’m going to combine all of the leagues that I’ve been watching this year; Premiership, LaLiga, Bundesliga, Eredivisi, UEFA Europa (and even ulp, the MLS) but I want to focus for a minute on the World Cup qualifiers, because they are happening right now and are ultimately by far, the matches of most consequence. 

The World Cup is the greatest of all the sports tournaments, with the hopes and wills of entire nations seemingly dwindling on a scale.  Up and down, up and down they go, and even to an absurd level, as was so horrendously and recklessly reported last month, regarding Mexico’s qualifying matchup, so do whole economies; One billion dollars apparently riding on one game?  (Well technically two games, with the aggregate goal totals being the deciding factor.  So basically, two 90 minute halves.)  Maybe in some configurations of economic calculations, those numbers might be close to accurate, but still, what an absurd and reckless thing to report on ESPN!  It’s not as if corruption is unheard of in sports, and I can only imagine what’s possible with a billion dollars on the line.  And those in control of the match have absolute control.  And this coming summer in the great country of Brazil we are once again, going to see if it works out for the best, or for the worst.               

Which brings me to my point.  As much as we are supposed to love and celebrate these World Cup qualifiers, there are some real problems from a broadcasting perspective. 

1.) The pitch is so big that we are always stuck with the extreme wide shot in live time, only getting close up looks after near misses and flops.  My kingdom for these guys to follow the NFL’s lead and put some cameras on wires to give us a new perspective.  That would be amazing wouldn’t it?  It has to be somewhere in that massive budget! 

2.) The poor announcers feel like they have to hype up the commentary as if the whole world is going to explode, when a goal is even only somewhat close to being scored.  But then of course it almost always isn’t.  And then…

3.  After said goal isn’t scored, we immediately get the close up of the player looking frustrated, embarrassed, often times like a bad actor, they give the George Costanza “who farted” face.  But the worst part is... 

4. The majority of close-ups that we do get are of the players when they try to sell a penalty call to the referee, by flailing dramatically, or going down to the pitch like they’ve been shot after being grazed incidentally.  Hands covering face, writhing on the ground waiting for the yellow or red card to come out.  This is done shamelessly on countless occasions, because it works.  Referees are tricked all the time, it reminds me of cheesy professional wrestling!  Now I know that this is a rough game and that there is real contact out there (we all remember the pain of shin on shin crime,) but the cameras don’t lie, and over and over again we are forced to witness the obvious pretenders.  While the referees play the dopes.    

So what happens next?  The announcers spend the next few minutes talking about how the call was wrong, and how the team got robbed by said call, but nothing is ever done to fix the wrong.  This is a big problem, because it happens over and over again.  And yes, there are missed calls in other sports too, but rarely in a sport where 1-0 is an extremely realistic outcome.  A call or non-call in the penalty box is very often the difference in the game!  90 minutes reduced to a one second penalty shot, which nearly always results in a goal.  And that brings us to our one major problem with this World Cup thing…

5.  One referee is God.  That’s it, that’s the problem.  There is one man on the field who decides every crucial aspect of the match with impunity, and it just makes no sense these days.  There could so easily be a few eyes in the sky that could overturn calls in obvious cases, and no one would be less served by it.  And it wouldn’t have to slow things down either.  It would enhance the product actually, so why hasn’t it been done?  If we wanted to watch one guy decide on his own, who wins or loses a championship game, why don’t we just watch him play a video game against himself, or role a dice.  It’s absurd.  Diego Maradona won the 1986 World Cup for Argentina by using his arm instead of his head on a header goal, and that is a lasting image for all time.  But Argentina is still the 1986 World Cup Champion.  Not addressing the egregious bad/non-calls is a disservice to the game.  It doesn’t preserve anything, in fact it actually exposes the games major weakness.  Why?  Why not make a change?

With whole countries riding on these results, we can't have frivolous, subjective calls dictating history.  Of course it is a near-impossible job to referee a match well, and these guys are extremely talented, but there has to be safe-guards.  Why aren't they in place for the world's most important sports tournament?  The table is now set for the summer in Brazil.  There's still time to get this right. 

C'mon powers that be!  The World Deserves it.

Just my two Euro,
Thanks for reading,
Underdogs Out!  

JFK... 50 Years Later...

I’m shocked.  Extremely so.  I have a great deal of respect for Bill Simmons and his wonderful ability to frame sports in the context of culture though his writing gifts, but I honestly could not believe what I heard this past week on his podcast, the BS Report.  It was a two-part series, where Simmons tackled the JFK assassination and it’s 50^th anniversary, and it was a real shame.  Of course I think Bill Simmons is a brilliant person and he naturally brought in bright people to talk turkey, Chris Connelly, Bill James, and Chuck Klosterman, but their ridiculous interview turned out to be anything but.  What a waste.  Of course the Underdogs weighed in on things-Dallas a few times, Here and... here.  There are so many interesting and bizarre elements to this case, that I'm sure I have become overly sensitive or easily offended when people casually dismiss or leave out specific details, but even from my flawed viewpoint, these guys totally missed the mark.         

I understand that these guys are writers, and therefore are very creative and artistically influenced, so they will inherently resist the mundane or the “widespread thought theories” at least philosophically, but I was still shocked at the lack of real substance in any of Simmons’ guest’s editorial opinions.  It felt like a group of giddy fraternity brothers talking.  After two hours, the general take-away from this debacle of a double-podcast was the following: that Oswald had acted alone, and JFK was shot from the front “accidentally by a secret-service agent.” 

You have got to be kidding me.  Even excluding political and economic concerns, this is a hugely absurd possibility.  Fractionally improbable, percentage-wise, at best, and even if all parties involved (in this broadcast) may now work directly, or indirectly for a major corporation, there is a responsibility or a collective opinion to come to.  But what we end up with here in Simmons’ podcast is a group of 40-somethings “of means,” simply wasting all of our time.  That's the best they could do?  No real opinion is challenged, and no discussion is terribly realistic at all unless they are simply intentionally trying to be counterintuitive. 

At one point, Klosterman, ridiculously so, explained it like this, “at 21, I was convinced of a CIA centered conspiracy, at 31 I didn’t know, and today, (hopefully, at 41 for these literary punks) I think Oswald acted alone,” is proof positive.  People give in to comforts.  Nothing has changed fact-wise, it’s just a matter of waxing-poetic.  As cliché as it is to talk about human nature and finding comfort in conspiracy theories, it’s so much more damning for these spineless writers, who are risking nothing, to swing the complete other direction, in spite of real evidence and to completely ignore its significance. They become bored so they find a new angle.   

Or maybe we should just presume ignorance, because in the face of perhaps the most important of possible truths we could learn is that there were real business consequences at stake.  And these reporters should have known the difference.  At the time, there was a tremendous amount of money on the line, nationally and internationally, and it would prove an absolutely pivotal time in the market-capitalistic-opportunistic-war-friendly-American possibility. All of the arguments made by Klosterman were so fanciful that it renders the whole conversation laughable.  It would never be so simple that then Vice-President Lyndon Johnson, would actually be a conspirator to a horrendous killing, but that doesn’t mean that certain select people within the American power structure didn’t know that his political policies would much better represent their personal business interests, in the place of a specifically removed President.  And of course, that doesn’t mean any thought to that effect can actually be proven, but it also doesn’t mean that we have to bend over backwards to force a bunch of random puzzle pieces to fit together in order to convict a convenient killer either.  But it seems like that’s exactly what the Warren Commission did in the following year. Maybe they were trying to calm an uncertain nation or clean things up neatly, but one thing is certain; they weren’t trying to actually solve the mystery.  And what’s more realistic anyway?  Extremely effective, ruthless businessmen acting in defense of their multi-billion dollar international business interests, that would prove to shape the whole world for generations to come, got something done with extreme precision, or that one guy performed a scientifically impossible one-man-hit job because he was upset about national policy and wanted the brief attention he would get by sacrificing himself?  What makes more sense?              

Of course this has all been said before, and maybe that’s why at this point in time, it just seems to be so ridiculously overlooked, by such cavalier journalists.  Of course it’s not ground-breaking information.  But maybe, because these opinions don’t really “belong” to our specific generation anymore, real evidence is being casually tossed to the side, despite its reputable contradiction to the official myths.  I can’t believe that people who are reported as intellectuals such as this group would waste their time talking about theories on emotionally based arguments, like they would a “Mafia based motive” or an action by a “communist sympathizer.”  These are overly simple and improbable explanations, and there is no evidence to support any of them.   

But that’s all Bill Simmons and his friends talked about.  What a waste.  There was very little talk about the Dallas Police or the CIA’s ineptitude to complete even the most basic of investigations.  That they um, gee… forgot to make any record of Oswald’s 12 HOUR incarceration after his arrest, or the curious realization that they could have possibly pinned the murder of a policemen, Officer Tippet, on him as well, that according to testimony, Oswald could never have been close to.  Or that all of the controlling interests in war-time-anti-Kennedy-interests that seemed to be represented there in Dallas too, always seem to get an unexplained pass.  Oh, and by the way, Oswald was murdered in a police-department basement as well.  Jack Ruby just happened to get in there with a loaded pistol, and shot him on National Television.  Yet it passed like just another blip on the radar as far as national relevance is concerned.  No real outrage here.  Oswald was never convicted, but everyone still labels him as a killer of a President.  Incredibly, Simmons and his friends, in their joyful banter, didn’t really mention this either.      

So what’s the other explanation?  If you want any real explanation from all of this new film evidence most recently making its way to light, instead of wasting your time with all of the conjecture of which random bullet did what, or how many seconds passed, while a certain head was at a certain angle, just stop and take a minute to look at all of the wide open windows left completely unchecked directly above the President’s parade route.  A route that was admittedly changed at the last minute; for a President’s motorcade.  An absurdly illegal route as well in this way.  Think about that.  Who ran Dallas at the time?  And why did the Federal secret service, for some reason, somehow accidentally forget to protect their client that day, when they’ve never been nearly so incompetent before or after so?  Complicit through intentional incompetence perhaps?    

It just couldn’t have been so random.  There was no mystery.  The Secret Service could have very easily checked out and secured the route days ahead of time, much less hours or minutes like they had done in the past, but for reasons never explained, they chose not to.  This lack of protection in such an environment, had never happened before or since for any American President, so why was it ignored on this day?  And why most importantly, why was it so underreported after the fact?  And why has it never been explained?  Simmons and his guests laughed it off as a Secret Service tradition in Dallas, that they were all out late the night, out on the town, and that their hung-over morning accounted for the troubles that day.  I hope that this can only be accepted by 50 years of desensitization, because it is just horrible.         

Has there ever been any real culpability taken, ever, by any government service, other than that of ignorance or incompetence?   Not that I know of.  It was at the very least an unforgivable dereliction of duty, but it was much more likely something more sinister.  Not by the men in the field, but as usual, by the ones pulling the strings, who have no face.  The ones who could manipulate a very large certain situation and then in one way or another also dictate the next forty years of American international policy.  They also made hundreds of billions of dollars too, through (many-times shady) American business interests all over the world.  It doesn’t take a conspiracy.  But like-minded people.  And no one is to blame.  It’s just business.    

I just don’t think anyone should forget this.  Even as academic as it can get when we talk about the 50 year anniversary of JKF’s assassination, at least this possibility still has to be in play.  The assassination has become a footnote in history, as easily dismissed as a stock-market crash or a war-peace-treaty, and maybe if you remove emotional attachment, it was just as important for certain businessmen, in the shaping of modern American Corporate global dominion.

 

And in a lot of ways that may be true, and maybe in some twisted way it was for the best economically.  But that’s why we depend on people like Chuck Klosterman, and Bill James, and Chris Connelly, and Bill Simmons to remind us that the bottom-line isn’t the only thing that’s important.  But this week they sold us out.  They are far too complacent; far too comfortable to make a realistic argument without laughing or trying a clever quip.  And if we do that, or agree with it, just because it’s easy, then we all fail.

But as far as trying to solve the crime, I feel like it has to be time to accept that we will never really know what happened that day.  So I guess I need to accept Klosterman's and Simmons' opinions.  

After 50 years of conjecture it's time to move on. 

Okay, Im done.   

  

Thanks for Reading,

Underdogs OUT!   

   

World Wide Sports and Miami's Vice...

It didn’t take spending the summer in Europe to teach me that Football is the king sport in this world, but it was quite the reminder.  Obviously, it’s more than a sport out there; it defies both cultural boundaries and sensible emotional ones.  People go crazy and I get that.  It was amazing to watch my first Classico between FC Barcelona and Real Madrid on tv a few days ago, just imagining what it must have been like to be at Camp Nou that night for the insanity.  It was impressive to watch how expertly FCB controlled the ball and the tempo, and seeing Messi in real time was great, and of course I was happy with the Barca victory.

Look, I can appreciate a good football match and the nuance of offenses and defenses even in a nil-nil draw, but for better or for worse, I must admit that I have my limits.  What can I say?  I’m American.  And now that I’m back stateside in Miami, I have been quite happy to get back to basics; to good ole ‘Murican sports.  And even though Major League Soccer is in the midst of its playoff schedule (and the LA Galaxy pushing for a three-peat,) let’s be serious for a second.  At long last, the NBA has returned to action!

I’ve written before, perhaps one time too many, about how fun the offseason is for us NBA junkies.  In a lot of ways it’s more fun than the games themselves.  It’s all about free-agents, salary cap space, new coaches, general managers, trades, and trade rumors, and we absolutely love this stuff.  Which teams got better?  How will player x, y, and/or z, play together?  Can the new coach/system work with the personnel?  What trades are left to be made?  But all of the elements regarding each team and their respective efforts to improve, all lead to one all-encompassing question.  Can any of these teams beat the Miami Heat?    

LeBron James may have said it best, when he said that, “sometimes in order to win championships and back to back championships you have to get a little lucky.”  And of course, that was never more clear than in last year’s Finals Game 6, when the Spurs basically had their fifth title in hand.  One of the greatest coaches of all time chose to keep his best rebounder out of the game in a crucial stretch, and it ultimately cost the Spurs the title.  One play, and one guy named Ray Allen, changed the entire outcome.  Sometimes it comes down something as simple as that, and history is written, and the whole underdog world is sucker-punched in the gut.  San Antonio should have been the champion!  Again!  The year before, if Oklahoma City hadn’t mystically elevated their offense to an unbelievable and absolutely unsustainable elite level in the Western Conference Finals, the Spurs would have been matched up with Miami even earlier.  And as I thought at the time they would have been in a fantastic position to beat Miami, before the Heat really solidified their playoff identity. 

It’s crazy to think how close we came to having two more Spurs championships in a row these past two years.  It’s infuriating, but it’s sports.  LeBron and the BeachBoys were just too much for all-comers.  And yea, we can complain all we want about the depleted east and how unfair it was that the Heat basically waltzed into the finals while the giants in the west had to battle it out amongst themselves, but in the end Miami was the team left standing, earning them their second straight championship.  So as annoying as it is, they are now the ninth team in NBA history to attempt the ever-elusive three-peat.  Mikan’s Lakers did it in the ‘50’s, Russell’s Celtics did it in the 60’s (twice,) Michael’s Bulls in the 90’s (twice,) and Shaq and Kobe’s Lakers in 2002.  Magic’s 80’s Lakers, Isiah’s 90’s Pistons, Hakeem’s 90’s Rockets, and Kobe’s 2011 Lakers couldn’t pull it off.  And interestingly, Russell’s Celtics couldn’t finish off their third one losing to Philadelphia in 1967, but it’s hard to imagine another team winning an incredible eight championships in a row, (so you could call it an acceptable failure.)  All in all it’s happened six times in the NBA’s sixty-six year history, and that’s what the Miami Heat face this year.  It’s just really hard to win basketball games this consistently.

So the question remains.  Who is the team to beat these guys?  What team has Miami’s Vice?  Of course it’s well documented that I think San Antonio had that squad, and still does, but getting out of the brutal West is never a given.  So this year the giant slayer needs to come from the East, and I think this team plays in the city of New York!  Only they don’t go by the greatest abbreviated nick-name in sports.  Those Knicks will falter quickly on the defensive end and go out in the first round, Indiana will put up a valiant fight but run short on talent, and the Bulls as always will be too feeble and undermanned when the moment counts the most.  No, there’s only one team in the East that has a shot to dethrone King James, and they play in New York’s most populated borough. 

Yea, I’m talking about BC Brooklyn!!!  Owned by a Russian Billionaire, they should have a European name, and the will be the ones to challenge Miami.  Mark my words!  But, more on that later... for now, the MLS playoffs are on.  
Just kidding ;)

Thanks for reading!

Underdogs out!   

    

Exercising the Demons... and the World Series...

Sports can be full of ironies, just like life.  And like life, it can also be full of those things that aren’t really ironies, but we like to say they are.  Like interesting coincidences, or sometimes not-so-interesting, depending on the time of day or the general mood of the person reading.  But in my opinion, playing itself out on baseball’s greatest stage this week, is something of an irony; or at least a mildly interesting coincidence.  Which brings us back to Toronto!  Did you see that coming?

A die-hard Underdogs reader may remember a post from two years ago, in that swell city north of the border, where a couple of friends and I shamefully committed a baseball atrocity.  With about a month left in the season and the visiting Red Sox up about ten games in the standings, and leading the Blue Jays by 4 runs that night, we decided to leave the game at the end of the seventh inning.  The dome roof was open that night and it was getting chilly and starting to rain a little bit, so we made the call.  But what happened next changed baseball history forever.    

My Bostonian pal and Red Sox lifer, Eve, who was well imbibed at this point, proclaimed the game over as we left, in demonstrative fashion (as she had been proclaiming things all night.)  She was filled with confidence after a moment earlier in the game, when she called a Big Papi homerun two seconds before he hit a monster shot.  I have it on video.  It was amazing at the time, but would eventually prove to be disastrous for the Red Sox’ season.

Surely a less confident Bo-Sox fan wouldn’t have dared utter such infamous last words as, “this game is over, we got this,” and, “we are definitely in the playoffs anyway.”  It was a violation of a century-long ingrained baseball superstition.  The baseball gods simply do not smile upon this kind of behavior, not with a game so unpredictable.  So what happened next?  The Blue Jays came back to force extra innings that night, and won the game in the 11^th.  Then from there, the Red Sox went on an abysmal losing streak for the remainder of the season and it turned into a historic slide.  No team had ever been up so many games that close to the end of the season, and then not made the playoffs!  It was absolutely shocking!  And it all traced back to that crisp September night in Toronto; a cataclysmic disturbance in the Red Sox space-time continuum.  I could never forgive myself. 

Of course I’m not a Boston Red Sox fan, but I have enough friends who are Saux fans, that I felt a great guilt about the events that occurred that night.  And since that time a once mighty Red Sox team hadn’t been back to the playoffs.  So given the opportunity I had no choice, it was time to act.  It was time to excorcise the demons. 

I found myself back in Toronto, this time at the beginning of the season, and when the Red Sox came to town, I knew it was my civil duty to get out there and repent for our horrendous actions on that fateful night.  And for all my die-hards, hopefully reverse the curse.  So I went out with a couple of cast mates Dana and Kyle to check out the game.  The Rogers Centre was horribly empty that night, because it coincided with the Maple Leafs playoff game against the Boston Bruins, and well, every Blue Jays fan is a Maple Leafs fan first.  There was a strange symmetry to everything.  The Hockey game was playing on TV’s around the stadium and the baseball game was more like background music, as the Red Sox predictably rang up an early lead. 

The Rogers Centre announced the Hockey score only once, early when the Leaf’s scored and the crowd erupted, but then it was never mentioned again.  We found out why later, because the Bruins went on to score four goals in a row taking the game easily, and eventually the series, crushing the Torontonians.  And as for the baseball game, aw man, it wasn’t even close.  Maybe it was the odd mall-like feeling at an indoor baseball game with fake grass and controlled temperature, (the roof was not open that night) or the enormous space being so sparsely populated, but it felt like there should have been a mercy rule enforced.  Like a t-ball game!  The Blue Jays were completely out-matched and the Red Sox won handily.  Yes!  We had done it.  Of course, we had done nothing, except drink a beer and eat a hot dog, but we had done it!  We had reversed the curse!  I don’t want to take all of the credit for the incredible 2013 Red Sox season of course, and I won’t, after all Dana and Kyle were there too.  But our heroic actions that night at least made it possible. 

And here’s that irony, or slightly interesting coincidence, that I mentioned earlier.  Kyle is from St Louis!  Where the Red Sox have just won 2 out of 3 to take control of the World Series; a fantastic matchup between two historically storied franchises, and the perfect end to the Major League Season.  Kyle is a Cardinal through and through, and undoubtedly completely loyal to his team, but I don’t think he regrets reversing the Red Sox Curse.  That pivotal night in Toronto, he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time; a part of a minimal footnote in the annals of baseball’s great lore.  Not cruel, but apt.  Not tragic, but perfectly appropriate.  This was the way it was supposed to be, and it all comes down to this.  Tonight we find out if it comes to fruition.  We will find out if the Red Sox rejuvenation will be completed and all of the demons exercised in their entirety.  And if not, it’s game seven on Thursday night.  And Kyle gets to smile that St Louis Cardinal smile for one day longer. 

It’ll be a tall order and if any team can do it, it’s the Cards, but fate, as they say, is working against them.  Boston vs St Louis tonight! 

Thanks for reading,

Underdogs out!      

The Name Game, and Sports-Nerdery...

Part of the fun about the slow sports time of August, is seeing how those who cover sports for a living, justify their columns and broadcasts.  And in my opinion the fantastic NBA writer Zach Lowe, over at Grantland on Figueroa, hit a homerun this past week, with The Definitive Guide to NBA Team Names Part 1 and Part 2.  C'mon take a look.  It's fun!  (Or just scroll down and look at the Underdog's list... because ours is better.  Sorry Zach ;)  It’s not that these installments were examples of his consistently excellent observations on basketball, or that I even agreed that much with his conclusions.  But it's just fun, and one of the reasons why we enjoy talking about this stuff.  

Finally, someone had the temerity to call out some of these franchises.  Many of which, for mostly inexplicable reasons, just chose terrible nicknames for their basketball teams.  I’ve been dying for some accountability on this topic for years.  And after Mr Grantland himself Bill Simmons taped a podcast with Lowe about this ever-important sports-nerd topic, it got me even more fired up.  Because I’ve had these thoughts for a long time, I found myself almost talking back to these guys, while listening on the treadmill, as if we’re actually friends having a conversation.  Okay, so clearly I have some issues, but that doesn’t change this fact.  The NBA has really let us down in the team name department, and for those of us who care about this stuff, it’s about time we talked about it. 

Before we show our own list of best and worst nicknames in the league, I want to first reply to Zach and Bill about some of their comments this past week.  So if you listened to it, maybe you can chime in with your ideas as well.  If you didn't listen to it, or don't care, just scroll down to the list and then send me your hate mail Laker-fans!    

This is actually the Raptors Logo.  No kidding

First, the Toronto Raptors:  These two intellectual giants missed one major point, when wondering why there are so few bird nicknames in the NBA.  They mentioned that the newly re-branded New Orleans Pelicans will be the second bird nickname after the Atlanta Hawks, but they are wrong on this point.  The Pelicans (which is a great nick-name by the way) are actually the third bird nickname in the league, it’s just that the Toronto Raptors have mis-marketed their team name for the past twenty years.  Everyone assumes (because of their ridiculous logo choices) that the team name refers to The CGI villains in Jurassic Park, a modified take on actual creatures that once existed named Velociraptors.   But the word “Raptor” means, “bird of prey.” An Eagle, a Hawk, a Vulture, a Condor; they are all Raptors.  They even have their own section at the Safari Park in San Diego, if you don’t believe me.   The sign says “Raptors” for crying out loud! They’re alive and well!  Just change the logo from that stupid dinosaur with sneakers on, and give the team a complete make-over.  And even though it would probably only mildly improve their place on this list, it’s an extreme improvement. 

LA Clippers = YEARS of misery

Then the Clippers: speaking of bird names, next up in their discussion was the fact that the Los Angeles Clippers really should have changed their name long ago.  Bill proposed losing “LA” from the name, to separate themselves somewhat from the Lakers enormous and popular shadow, and claiming “Hollywood” instead, as the Hollywood Knights or the Hollywood Stars.  I like this idea but I know that the marketing guys would never go for it, because Hollywood has too many we’re-better-than-you perceptions tied to it.  Even though I live there and love the area, even just mentioning it, can turn off people in the hinterland.  So how else do the Clippers completely rebrand their franchise and diminish their absolutely miserable history, and get rid of the LA name while keeping all of the big market advantages?  How about changing their name to the California Condors?  A conservation project over the past 20 years has successfully brought the majestic birds back from the verge of extinction.  Not a bad angle right?  The team’s identity is shifted, and it’s a feel-good story to boot. It may be a bit corny, but it can’t be worse than Clippers, and the extremely negative connotations the franchise’s ineptitude has piled up over the past 30 years.  If you think about it, this is the perfect time to change the name of the team, as they are true contenders in the West for the first time ever.  But of course nothing like this happened this summer, because, well, they are the Clippers.

Sneakers, Floor, Backboards, Nets...

And finally, the Nets: Lowe and Simmons went back and forth about the best way for the Brooklyn Nets to drop their completely uninspired nickname, attached to the franchise since the ‘70’s, and they pontificated that it might be best for them to just not have a nickname at all; to just be called Brooklyn.  Which is actually a very cool idea.  They are the only team in the league to have home jerseys that say the city name as opposed to the nickname, so they’re really halfway there already, but ultimately Simmons other podcast guest Dave Damashek quashed the idea as unworkable.  But after spending last week seeing how obsessed Barcelona is with FC Barcelona, why not have an NBA team called BC Brooklyn.  I love the idea.  Make it happen Prokhorov!  

If you looked at Lowe’s list I disagreed with quite a few of his rankings.  Nets at number 30 was solid, but the Cleveland Cavaliers at 29 made no sense to me.  It might not be the best name, but it’s far better than at least eight other names in the league.  And his rationale that “cavalier” is also a word for lazy was weak, as many words have multiple meanings.  The Cavs are fine.

The Minnesota Timberwolves at number 23 was way too high too.  Even though the team has been horrible for the past twenty-five years, basically its entire existence, the name is good, and regionally appropriate.

The Denver Nuggets at 21 might be about right, but I’ve wanted Denver to change this name for years.  It’s just a really terrible name for a basketball team, and I have it higher (worse) on my list than Zach Lowe did. 

The Washington Wizards at 17 is too low.  Even though it is technically appropriate because it is plural of a person, and ends in s, it is without a doubt one of the worst names in American sports. 

I think much more highly of the Dallas Mavericks than Mr Lowe as well as he put them at 17.  I thought that was too harsh as I’ve always considered it a pretty great name.  Totally different and regionally appropriate.  

But of course, all of those lame, singular, entity names took their rightful place in the lowest third of the list.  Indefensible nicknames like Heat, Magic, Suns, and Thunder.  None of which make any sense for a basketball team.  Jazz gets a pass from Mr Lowe, because of the improvisation nature of both art forms, and their wonderful logo design, but I don’t totally agree with him on that either.

So with no more further ado… Here’s the list that no one asked for.

The Underdogs rankings of NBA Team Nick Names.    

30.  Charlotte Bobcats

The expansion team for the state where human flight was invented could have been the Pilots, the Flyboys, the Airmen or any other cool name for Flyers.  Or anything but the lamest name in American Pro sports.  The ABA had a team called the Carolina Cougars, which wouldn’t have been that bad.  Oh but I guess the owner at the time wasn’t named Cougar Johnson; it was Bob Johnson.  Seriously, how did they decide on this name with straight faces?

29.  Orlando Magic

I don’t think it really needs to be explained.  It’s just really bad.  Even the Wizards would be an improvement, because at least Wizards are the dudes that do the magic.

28.  Phoenix Suns

In our solar system there is one sun.  Are they insinuating that the team is a group of unthinkably massive celestial infernos spanning many different galaxies?  They couldn’t have thought of something better than this?

27.  Miami Heat

Just terrible.  An invisible force that cooks things.  This is the name of your basketball team?  Although with three championships now and counting, it doesn’t sound as bad as it probably should. 

26.  Denver Nuggets

A golden nugget is worth quite a bit of money, and there is a nice historical connection to the area, but how does that relate to players on a basketball team?  Major puzzlement that they’ve never changed this name.   

BC Brooklyn.  

25.  Brooklyn Nets

I agree that this name is very bad, but what Lowe leaves out of his argument is that, to “net” is also a term used occasionally in basketball that refers to scoring.  Ripping the nets, scorching the nets… those are good things in basketball.  He does mention that when they moved to New York in the 70’s they wanted to rhyme with Mets and Jets for visibility.  But still, the fact that the team moved to high profile Brooklyn last year and didn’t sever the ties with that inanimate object that hangs below the rim, is indefensible.

24.  Washington Wizards

When the Bullets changed their name to the Wizards in 1997 it was shocking. And even though, then-owner Abe Polin’s attempt to distance his franchise from the high crime rate in DC seemed like a decent idea, it just doesn’t ring true over time.  It’s unlikely that a basketball team named after a Bullet would realistically encourage someone towards criminal activity who wasn’t going to head that way anyway, and frankly the Wizard name is just abominable. Plus the Bullets had real NBA history dating back to their Baltimore days.  The Wiz should become the Bullets again and if Orlando wants to be called the Wizards, step right up. 

23.  Los Angeles Clippers

For reasons that I mentioned earlier, just an all-round swing-and-a-miss here.  They share a building with the greatest franchise in the sport and historically they’ve been one of the worst, and the only reason they have any fans at all is because LA is filled with transplants from other cities who love basketball but can’t be Laker fans.  It made some sense during the brief time that the team was in San Diego, but it’s crazy that this name has never been changed.     

22.  Toronto Raptors

Also for reasons that I mentioned earlier, I think this name still has potential.  Raptors are killer birds, and that’s a great name for an NBA team, but the franchise has insisted on branding themselves as goofy dinosaurs with sneakers on.  It’s just insane.  Who is advising these people?  Presumably, the three people in Toronto that actually care about the NBA. 

21.  Oklahoma City Thunder

When this team moved from Seattle, and everyone was imagining what they could be called, there were so many great options.  As Lowe said, Roughriders, Renegades, Outlaws, Barons, Bison, Deputies, Sheriffs, or Marshalls were all decent choices.  I remember really wanting them to be the Desperados.  How amazing would that have been?  But no one listens to me.  The only reason Thunder seems somewhat okay now is that it rolls of the tongue okay, they’ve had successful seasons, and they finally figured out that AC/DC’s song Thunderstruck is perfect for a chant.  “THUNDER! aaah-ahhhh-ahhhhhh-ah… THUNDER!!!”

20.  Utah Jazz

I have to disagree with Lowe majorly here.  They’ve done admirably by the name and have had quite a bit of success, so I don’t blame them for sticking with it although it obviously originated in New Orleans, but it can’t be considered a great nick-name.  It’s just horribly mismatched. 

19.  Cleveland Cavaliers

Not a great name, but not terrible either.  Par for the course for these guys.

18.  Indiana Pacers

I don’t hate the name Pacers.  I like the ABA history and the connection to the Indy 500, but when I think about it, basically their team is named after the Pace car… which is the car that isn’t even in the race!  That’s your goal?  Middle of the pack?  Why were they not called the Indiana Racers? 

17.  Sacramento Kings

A fine name for a team.  Boring, and possibly sadly ironic in this case, but okay.

16.  Atlanta Hawks. 

Same thing here.  Decent name, nothing wrong with it.   

15.  Minnesota Timberwolves.

This is actually a wonderful name for a team; imaginative and appropriate, and it’s even fun to say!  I think we would think much higher of this name if the team hasn’t been in the basement for the better part of twenty-five years. 

14. Los Angeles Lakers

This is actually a great name for a basketball team, even though no one knows what it means.  Of course we all know that Minneapolis is the land-of-lakes, and that's where the franchise was founded, but still, "Laker" is not a word.  Maybe it’s because this nonsensical name has been synonymous with basketball excellence for over fifty years.  I admit, it probably should be lower on this list, but… we don’t know what a Laker is.

13. Milwaukee Bucks

I think this name is solid.  Simple.  Classic.  And their “fear the deer,” slogan is one of the coolest in sports.

12. San Antonio Spurs

Fantastic franchise.  Unbelievable success.  Good name too, but a little confusing.  A spur is basically a knife on your foot right?

11.  New Orleans Pelicans

I do like this name.  I know some people laugh at how silly it sounds, but they must not realize that pelicans are actually pretty amazing birds and fierce hunters too.  But realistically, since they haven’t played a game yet, we’ll have to wait and see how it all plays out.   

10.  Memphis Grizzlies

I like this name.  Everyone talks about how stupid it is that they didn’t change it when they moved from Vancouver.  There are no bears in Tennessee?  Are there Bears in Chicago? 

9.  Golden State Warriors

Another solid name.  Just beautiful to read and write too as they are only team in the NBA to not be named after a city or state.  Poetic really.

8.  Dallas Mavericks

Not sure why Lowe was down on the Mavs, I think this is a great name.  I’ve never heard another team with this name and it gives us the cowboy edge in a different way.  Plus it has a “v” and a “k” in it! 

7.  Philadelphia 76ers

I like the historical significance here.  Maybe a little confusing as to what the word really means, but great name. 

6.  Houston Rockets

Brilliant connection with the city, even though they originated in San Diego.  Everything about it works.   

5. Chicago Bulls

Perfect name.  Classic.  And the Jordan years alone probably should have this nick-name at number one. 

4.  Detroit Pistons

I love this name.  What could be a better name for a team from Detroit?  And they started in Fort Wayne too.  What are the chances?  Just beautiful.  The Rockets and Pistons franchises moving to their current cities was a clear example of divine intervention, as far as sports team names are concerned.     

3.  New York Knickerbockers

The Knicks haven’t had nearly as great of a history as they should have, being in New York, but the name is right on the money.

2.  Boston Celtics

I’ve never been a Celtics fan.  It doesn’t make much sense at all, and isn’t it even mispronounced?  But just like the Knicks, it works so well as a classic basketball team name.  No other name like it exists in American pro sports.  They have to go ahead of Knicks though because of their incredible success.    

1.  Portland Trail Blazers

I have to agree with Zach here.  They really nailed this name.  It works on all levels.  Perfect for the region, for the pursuit of excellence, and "Blazers" is a perfect short-hand for the team.  Bravo Portland.  You win the the big prize!

Of knowing that you're cool.  

As if you didn't know that already.

Thanks for Reading,

Underdogs out!